Posted on

More Oops

This video is an account of an incident that happened to a jump pilot a few years ago in Australia.  It’s a diver driver’s worst nightmare an open parachute over the tail.  After watching it you’ll understand why I wear a rig when flying jumpers.

Posted on

Truth

1. When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten. – Robert Livingston, “Flying The Aeronca”

2. Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day. – Layton A. Bennett

3. Never fly the ‘A’ model of anything. – Ed Thompson

4. When a prang seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity, as slowly and gently as possible. – Advice given to RAF pilots during W.W.II.

5. The Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you. – Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot

6. A pilot who doesn’t have any fear probably isn’t flying his plane to its maximum. – Jon McBride, astronaut

7. If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. – Bob Hoover

8. If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; Ride the bastard down. – Ernest K. Gann, advice from the ‘old pelican’

9. Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I Am 80,000 Feet and Climbing. – Sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location on Kadena

10. You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3. – Paul F. Crickmore

11. Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you. – Richard Herman, Jr., ‘Firebreak’

12. There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. – Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970. (It was still there in 1972.)

13.The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life to experience all three at the same time. – Author Unknown

Posted on

Stalls Kill

We lost another jump plane full of skydivers this weekend.  A Cessna 206 in Australia crashed the other day killing the pilot and two tandem instructors and their students.   Same old tragic story.  Loss of power on takeoff.  Pilot attempts the impossible turn.  Stall.  Spin.  Crash.  Everyone dead.  This scenario happens time and time again and it drives me absolutely batshit crazy!   I train jump pilots every year and the one thing I focus most on is how to crash.  some pilots like to call it a forced landing but lets call a spade a spade.  If you lose power, land off the airport and bend the aircraft it’s a crash.  If you and all your passengers walk away it’s a good crash.  If everyone dies, not so much.  Every pilot knows if the airspeed gets too slow the plane stops flying, that’s not good.  The problem is that too many pilots just can’t accept the fact that sometimes they are in a no-win situation and no matter what they do they are going to crash.  I can see it like I was there in the cockpit with them.  BANG! out of nowhere the engine quits.  You were in the climb out with the nose high and your airspeed immediately starts dropping like like a turd from a tall moose as your heart rate goes the other way.  You frantically look around the cockpit trying to spot something obviously wrong, something you could fix, something that could get you out of this situation.  But there’s nothing wrong, nothing to fix.  Look up, find a place to land.  But what’s in front of you isn’t a runway, it’s trees, buildings, a school, a golf course, (no, it’s never a golf course) Doesn’t matter it’s not a runway and you’ve never not landed on a runway.  TURN AROUND! THE RUNWAY’S BEHIND YOU!  You bank hard and head back to the runway.  HOW DID I GET SO LOW?   AND HOW DID MY AIRSPEED GET SO LOW?  You look at the runway out the side window….too far away……here comes the ground……PULL UP!  Here come the trees, PULL UP! every time I’ve pulled back on the yoke the plane has climbed.  Over the hundreds or thousands of hours I’ve spent flying every time I’ve pulled back on the yoke the plane has climbed.  Its become as natural a reaction as breathing.  Don’t come up short of the runway, PULL UP!  But it doesn’t work that way.  The thousands of times you’ve pulled  back on the yoke a running engine and excess airspeed has pulled you higher into the sky.  But not this time.  This time you’re a poor excuse for a glider.  And there’s no airspeed left.  And airspeed is life.  The stall horn shrieks, the pre-stall buffet gets worse, but you can’t bring yourself to lower the nose, if you do that you’ll never make the runway, you’ll crash, and that’s something you just can’t accept…won’t accept.  So you do the only thing you can think of to keep from crashing, you pull back more.  The end is quick.

Posted on

More Oops

Against all odds I managed to survive 7 days of back country skiing in British Columbia, or I should say my new hip survived, it’s made of cobalt unlike my leg muscles.  Too tired from the 24 hour drive back to Wisconsin to give you the full after action report right now so here’s a shot of why you should always look both ways before crossing the runway.

Image source: Polk Co. Sheriff's Office via Tampa Bay Times

Maybe the pilot should’ve sharpened his leading edge more.

Posted on

Instructor Rating

So it has come to pass that Number One Son (NOS) has completely lost his mind.   Having just turned 17 he’s often getting the question “So, what do you want to do for a living?”  Over the years NOS has given answers you would expect from my son, Skydiver, NAVY Seal, Drop Zone manager and airplane mechanic.  His latest and so far most serious is ARMY helicopter pilot and I couldn’t be happier.  I spent 12 years in ARMY aviation and know a few things and a few high ranking people that will help him get selected for flight school, weather it’s as a Warrant officer or after attending ROTC in college.  One of the first things he asked me was weather having his pilots license would help him get a flight school slot.  I told him that of course having a pilot’s license would help get selected and if selected would really help him in flight school.  I told him that if he’s serious I’d pay for his flight training.  NOS then asked me if I could teach him to fly.  “No son, I don’t have my instructor’s rating.”  “Well, couldn’t you get it and then teach me?”    “Oh crap,” I thought, I’d never wanted to get my instructor rating and had no desire to teach flying.  I got my fill of teaching by being a full time skydiving instructor and the thought of flying students trying not only to kill themselves but me as well held no appeal.  But I had to admit that having my instructor rating would come in handy.  My daughter “Super Girl” had a terrible time finding an flight instructor she liked, and it would be nice to be able to give my father and pilot friends their biannual flight reviews.  So reluctantly I agreed to get my Instructor rating.  Step one- hit the books and take two written tests, ugh.